


Just Hold Me Like A Gun

by exposeyou



Series: I'm With The Band [1]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: Gen, I'm With The Band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exposeyou/pseuds/exposeyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an band AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Hold Me Like A Gun

They didn’t have many fans yet, but the ones they did have seemed to harbour some misconceptions about the band.

Quite high up on this list of misunderstandings was the idea that Sienna was a slut. In fact, as she’d only had sex with one other band member, she was one of the least slutty in terms of intra-band promiscuity. It didn’t look good though, that when Sadie left the band, Jude jumped into bed with the next drummer straightaway, particularly as Jude was that the one all the girls screamed over. Sure, Ewan had his fair share of groupies, but as the frontman it was usually Jude that got the sexual limelight. He might be a moody git sometimes, but it’s what the public enjoyed. He played the part of rock star very well – and much better since they got Jonny in to play lead guitar. It was a decision made ostensibly so that Jude could ‘concentrate on his singing’, but largely because the fallout of Sadie leaving had taken its toll on him. The music press had hardly been kind about it.

Older than the boys, she’d been a driving force behind the band since the very early days (Ewan maintained that as they hadn’t even realised their second album yet, they were very much still in their ‘early’ days, and would go on to have long, illustrious careers) and although her departure had been publicly attributed to Jude’s occasionally diva-esque ways, it had affected him much more than people outside of the band had realised. He’d threatened to jack it all in, give up everything, until the record company had quietly ushered him into the Priory for a couple of weeks, and brought Jonny in so he would have less to think about.

So when they’d started work on _Eminence_ _Front_ – a bigger, more anthemic sound than the dirty, low-key rock that had characterised their early EPs and the first album, they were fundamentally a different band. Sadie, astute and cold and bright, was out, replaced by Sienna, her polar opposite in looks, background, and musical style. Ewan had never asked what she had been in rehab with Jude for, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was an eating disorder. Now she pounded the hell out of the drums with a boundless, nervous energy that could be unsettling to watch. What the press would think if they ever found out that she regularly collapsed backstage after gigs (although not _every_ gig, now) Ewan didn’t want to know.

Jonny was a surprising addition to the roster, but Ewan could see why the powers that be had thought it necessary. The whole reason they got signed to a major label was so that their status as underground darlings could be translated into mainstream success. When your frontman is famous for excessive womanising and your only other male member is still best-known for the drama that followed his telling the NME that he’d “love to do a song with Brandon Flowers, if you know what I mean... Something hard and fast and dirty,” and they’d ran the story with that photo from a couple of years ago, when he’d pulled down his leather trousers and mooned a difficult audience in Belgium...Well, yes, it made sense to have someone _safe_ around for the mums and young girls to coo over.

Even though he was undoubtedly a good guitarist, Jude didn’t take his inclusion well. When they were starting work on _Eminence Front_ – not long after Jude came home – and gone to a club to blow off steam, he’d vanished for too long. Ewan had panicked, convinced that he’d relapsed into that dark mood and must be in the toilets necking pills. He’d found him sat on a fire escape, clutching half a bottle of Champagne (was he even allowed to be drinking? Ewan had asked himself). He couldn’t tell if he’d been crying or not – his eye-liner could’ve run in the fine rain – but his voice was fragile when he spoke. “He’s here to replace me, isn’t he?”

Ewan had assured him that he was wrong, that the band would be nothing without Jude, not to the record company and certainly not to Ewan. He’d called Sadie a couple of weeks after what the music magazines had called ‘the divorce’ and had offered, now that one corner of the triangle had left, to rename the band. She had thanked him for the thought, a bit too formally. It wouldn’t be necessary, because now, Ewan and Jude, they _were_  the band. The ah- what was the word she used? The nucleus, the hub. Anyone else, after Sadie, was just window-dressing. They knew now that other people were ephemeral.

Jonny still rubbed Jude up the wrong way though, for weeks. It was true that they looked quite similar, and that one time when a photographer had got their names confused, Jude had had to leave the room to calm down and have a smoke. If he hadn’t, he probably would’ve punched the poor kid. That incident hadn’t been Jonny’s fault, but when he bleached his hair and shaved the sides, Jude still wasn’t happy. It was a play for attention, an attempt to steal the limelight, and Jonny was a snake in the grass.

Ewan had watched as Jonny took verbal abuse in trickles, then torrents, over a few months, with the demeanour of a Hindu cow. What Jude didn’t seem to realise was that Jonny wasn’t turning the others against him, his outbursts were doing that. Jonny himself was calm, unflinching, and looked as if he never heard a word of it.

Until the night when they played a gig to a student crowd in Birmingham, and Sienna, too hot under the lights in black spandex, had fainted once again. In an ill-lit corridor, she’d dropped her drumsticks, tried to speak, then sank to floor in slow-motion, almost. The height from her heels, and the slenderness of her ankles had made Ewan think of a young tree being felled. He made a mental note of the metaphor, in case it was good for a song, and watched Jonny scoop her up from the floor. It was a brotherly gesture, devoid of intent, but that hadn’t stopped Jude making something of it when they got back to the hotel.

Ewan had rolled his eyes, it was ridiculous, really. Anyone could see that Sienna was hopelessly devoted to Jude, despite his coldness and what internet fansites might say. But Jonny, for once, bit back. He’d practically hissed at Jude, but so quietly that Ewan, stood right next to him, was the only one who could hear what he’d said. “Because you hate clearing up your own messes, don’t you?”

When Jude thundered back, Hollywood thriller-style, that he should come right up to him and say that again, Ewan had expected a fight. But Jonny remained calm. Nature similes being the theme of the night, Ewan had thought of how a lake, calm on the surface, still holds the threat of drowning. He’d offered Jude outside to talk about this ‘like men’, and Jude, spoiling for a fight, agreed.

Ewan had watched them in the car-park in a pool of orange streetlight. His window was too high up, and the noise from the motorway too loud, to make out what they were saying, but he could read the aggression in their movements even from the fifth floor.

The Jude took a threatening step forwards, flicking his cigarette behind him, and they were in the shadows, lost to view. But Ewan, if you’d asked him, would’ve sworn that before he was out of sight, he’d looked straight up at him.

In the morning, Jonny’s split lip told the story. Perversely, Ewan was fascinated by his bloody mouth. It should be hideous, but instead the swelling and the blood make his mouth look redder and glossier, as if Sienna had painted his mouth with lipstick. He had to look down at his toast to ward off the thought of the things he would like to do to that mouth. When he looked up, Jonny was wincing, the hot coffee he was drinking burning his tender lips. It was an injury again, and the spell was broken.

Whatever went on in that car-park, it cleared the air. Even if Jude barely looks at Jonny now, at least he’s not spitting insults at him. When Jonny offers some input on the new songs, he doesn’t get shot down.

A label-enforced trip to the doctors left Sienna with a diagnosis of low blood pressure, a box of multivitamins, and orders to have an early night, which made them laugh. Ewan had driven her to the surgery: as Jonny’s concern for their drummer had sparked the fight, Ewan thought he would relieve him of the duty for once, for fear of a rematch. He didn’t get to spend much time with her alone, and had never really wanted to before. He hadn’t felt like this about Sadie. He and Jude would never have got themselves organised enough to play even the smallest pub gig if it hadn’t been for her. Sadie had been _necessary_. Sienna...Well, when Sadie had left, he had been vaguely concerned about finding a new drummer, sure, but at the same time he had anticipated spending more time with Jude, just the two of them. Getting back to how things were when they were just flatmates, not colleagues. But then things started to go wrong, and when Jude came back, he had this bit of blonde fluff in tow. But then she’d disproved that assessment early on, hadn’t she, the second he’d heard her play? And the way she’d handled all this being ill...Never once calling off a gig, even though for a while it was pretty much a given that she’d be a state afterwards. She’d be remarkably unfazed by the things that had been said about her dating Jude, too, not even when those girls at the signing on Oxford Street had called her a whore to her face.

He felt a bit bad about doubting her, actually. It wasn’t her fault that he had harboured secret hopes of the band being an all-boys club again. _And_ she’d put up with him pretty much ignoring her because of that. She must be pretty lonely, he realised. She probably thought she’d been given a great opportunity when she started playing with them, only to find out that her boyfriend only spoke to her when he was horny, and the only person in the band who really treated her like a person was the other newcomer.

Despite being quietly praised as one of the most interesting young lyricists in England at the time, all of this left his mouth as “you’re pretty cool, you know that?”

Even though he was driving, he could see that she visibly lit up at that. He couldn’t resist grinning back. Maybe they could be friends. It would certainly make life a bit easier.

“You’re pretty cool too”.

“I’m sorry that Jude has been of a bit of dick lately” _I’m sorry that I’ve been a bit of a dick_.

“It’s not like it’s your fault”.

And things went back to being awkward again. Where did he go wrong there? He attempted to salvage the situation. He’d enjoyed those thirty seconds of getting along. He blurts out the first thing he thinks of.

“Would you show me how you do Jude’s eye-liner?”

“Sure”

She didn’t, though. In the end he asked Jude himself, although Jonny had taken to doing some smudgy thing with eyeshadow that was more subtle but looked a bit fiddly.

They were back in London, for a gig in Camden. They’d gone for a walk earlier, just the two of them, like the old days, and had, on a whim, taken the tube to Brixton. They’d lingered outside the Academy, remembered gigs they’d been to there and talked about the ones they would eventually play there. It was actually only a matter of time, provided they didn’t screw up. Ewan was giddy at the thought of playing amongst all that faded glory. There was history here, even if it was covered up in plastic signage with a lager company logo on it. It wasn’t long until the deadline for _Eminence Front_ , and bigger, more popular venues would be the plan of attack. The label would, naturally, want them out there as much as possible to promote it. Writing and recording these few months had felt stressful, and the few gigs that they had had dotted about had felt like refreshing breaks, but Ewan knew that touring would be more gruelling physically, at least. So he enjoyed walking around what was really his hometown, now – well, not Brixton, but central London certainly felt familiar enough – and remembered how things used to be, playing in pubs and people’s houses.

Sadie had got them – through her inexhaustible supply of ‘connections’ – bigger, more interesting things, playing at student balls and shows by edgy young fashion designers working out of Shoreditch. He remembered the time at a promo party for a boutique vodka brand when a girl with a Mohawk had told them that they reminded her of The Libertines, the pair of them, and had they ever fucked? And at that _exact_ awkward moment, who should walk around the corner but Carl _fucking_ Barat, and they’d quit the place to hang out in a shisha bar God knows where, and Carl had told him he liked his lyrics, and Jude had taken the punk girl home, and Sadie had come home the next day with the bad news that hey, they weren’t getting paid but the company had given them a case of the stuff...

He didn’t talk about it, though. He didn’t like to remind Jude about Sadie and how the band was so different now. So in the dressing-room backstage, back in Camden, he’d asked Jude to do his eyeliner for him. After a few false starts and scrubbing his eyes with his sleeves, they’d changed tactic. Jude wasn’t used to putting make-up on someone else, it felt ‘the wrong way round’, so he stood behind Ewan, and did it looking in the mirror instead.

He’d pushed Ewan close up against the chipped sink so that he was near enough to see what he was doing, arms around his chest, one hand on his chin to keep him still while he smudged ashy black slashes under his eyes.

Ewan, normally languid and louche and loose with his movements, was focussing on keeping perfectly still after messing up attempts one and two. It was harder than he thought it would be, somehow. Since Jude had ‘been away’ as they all euphemistically referred to his spell in rehab (if they dared mention it at all) they’d not been in such close proximity. And though he was too young a man to indulge in so much nostalgia in one day, it took him back to how things used to be, sleeping on floors and sharing a bed for warmth when they could afford money for the meter, Jude too proud to ask his parents for anything. Touching like this used to be natural. This time Ewan was painfully aware of it, and painfully aware of his own awkwardness. Friendship wasn’t supposed to be painful, was it?

Jude never used to be so thin, not even when they were so skint that they joked about living off of dog food, (but wasn’t their poverty just another affectation to Jude), and he wasn’t so far away, they were close, they were brothers, they were good. Ewan told himself to shut up. Jude was here, Jude was fine, this was just his nerves talking, _babbling_. “We’re gonna play a good show, aren’t we?” he asked, their usual roles reversed.

“You bet, we’re gonna kick _ass_ ”

Ewan laughed at the American pronounciation. They were good. They were still brothers, still a team. They _were_ gonna be good tonight, scruffy jeans and t-shirts exchanged for leather, in his case, and a pair of designer jeans (a present from Sienna), and an elegant, open-necked white shirt, for Jude. The girls were going to go wild tonight. The flare of Jude’s lighter illuminated the dingy room as he lit them each a cigarette, and he looked suitably devilish. Shadows made his cheeks look hollow and his eyes darker. The momentary glow highlighted his cheekbones, and a black bruise on his neck, then his first exhale hid him behind a veil of smoke.

“You look good tonight, man, really good... Do you have a pen?”

Ewan scribbled most of a song in the forty minutes before they’re needed on stage. It was in green Sharpie (Jude kept one on him for autographs, the smug bastard) and scrawled on the back of a phone-bill that Ewan had found stuffed in the pocket of his jacket, but he thought it had potential. He gave it to Sienna to work out a tune. He thought it would be a nice gesture.


End file.
